***
Warren Norman’s recent op-ed suggests that conservatives should abandon Republican nominee Darline Graham and consider supporting Democrat Annie Andrews. I strongly disagree.
This election is not about settling scores from a Republican primary. It is about who represents South Carolina in the United States Senate for the next six years – and the consequences of that decision for our state and our country.
Annie Andrews has shown herself to be an activist for biological males competing in women’s sports. She received an ‘F’ from the NRA and has been an outspoken advocate for hormone therapies and puberty blockers for minors here in South Carolina. And, if elected, she could cast deciding votes for dozens of liberal federal judges – including up to three Supreme Court justices.
These are not minor disagreements. They are fundamental differences in policy and principle, with consequences that could extend well beyond a single Senate term.
Warren seems to believe that six years of Democratic representation would somehow be preferable to electing Darline Graham. But six years is an eternity in Washington.
***
RELATED | THIS LIFELONG CONSERVATIVE WON’T VOTE FOR DARLINE GRAHAM
***
During that time, the Senate will decide judicial confirmations, spending bills, tax policy, national security priorities, and countless other issues that directly affect South Carolina families. Recent history has repeatedly demonstrated that a single Senate vote can change the direction of our country.
In fact, in just the third year of this term Andrews could be a deciding vote to push a Gavin Newsome or AOC agenda into law. DC and Puerto Rico statehood. The legalization of 20 million illegals who can vote immediately. A ban on the most popular hunting and sporting rifles in the country.
And depending on the outcome of other Senate races, this seat could determine which party controls the Senate when the 120th Congress convenes in January.
That means a vote for Annie Andrews could help make Chuck Schumer the Senate Majority Leader, giving Democrats control of the chamber’s agenda, committees, and legislative priorities.
South Carolina conservatives should think carefully before handing that kind of power to a New York liberal whose priorities are fundamentally at odds with our values.
***
I understand that some Republicans are disappointed with the primary results. That’s politics. We compete, voters decide, and then we move forward.
Even Ralph Norman on multiple occasions has publicly said he will vote for Darline Graham. If Ralph himself recognizes the importance of supporting the Republican nominee, what exactly does continuing a write-in campaign accomplish?
Conservatives do not have to agree on everything. We can disagree about candidates, campaigns, and personalities without losing sight of the principles that brought us together in the first place. But there is an enormous difference between a disagreement among Republicans and the policy differences separating Republicans from Democrats.
One is about who we preferred in a primary. The other is about who will make decisions affecting our families, our freedoms, and our country’s future.
We cannot afford to confuse the two.
South Carolina voters deserve a serious discussion about the consequences of this election—not an extension of a primary campaign that voters have already decided. Personal grievances should never outweigh the interests of our state or our country.
This election is about common sense, not sour grapes. And the common-sense choice is Darline Graham.
***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
William Timmons is a businessman and former prosecutor from Greenville, S.C. who represents the people of South Carolina’s fourth district in the United States Congress.
***
SOUND OFF…
Got something you’d like to say in response to one of our articles? Or an issue you’d like to address proactively? We have an open microphone policy! Submit your letter to the editor (or guest column) via email HERE. Got a tip for a story? CLICK HERE. Got a technical question or a glitch to report? CLICK HERE.
9 comments
I am not voting “for” Annie Andrews. I am voting “against” DJT who wants to shove Darline Graham up our collective butts, whether we want her or not. This “lesser of evil” voting bs is exactly what stuck us with Lindsey for too many terms, and keeps RINOs like Tim Scott, Mitch McConnell, and other dreck like them perpetually in office. We were blessed with Lindsey checking out and I do not intend to squander that vote on his “Little Sister” so she can glue her butt to the same seat his was glued to for too many terms.
The so-called “right”, “Conservative” Talk Radio, and other sources are doing their damndest to get or keep these RINOs in office so they can vote and act just like Democrats, by trying to scare us with massive political fear porn. (“Commies, Muslims, and trannies; oh my!”)
I don’t expect anything good from the Democrats who I hope win the mid-terms, at all. I do hope that after 2, 4, or 6 years, out of office, the Republican Party has time to re-think many of its actions and the kind of candidates it pushes on us.
I don’t expect Darline to be any different than her RINO feminine brother, just maybe a bit worse because she has no clue what she will be doing. That means if she needs to know how to vote on a given bill, she will probably ask Trump or her assigned AIPAC handler. She will be the very definition of a puppet.
On comment boards all over the web, I see goobers posting silliness like, “I voted/will vote Red, straight down the line.” By doing so, they ensure a lot of RINOs keep their seats in perpetuity because they fear Democrats and the commies, Muslims, and trannies, they will “surely” unleash on us all. When the RINOs do the stuff they fear the Democrats doing, it is somehow “okay” because the RINO has an “R” by his or her name. Yeah, I do not get it!
But for those who will proudly vote RED cause FOX News, Conservative talk radio, Trumpstein, or Mr Timmons told you to, by all means, do so!
Vote RED for endless and unlimited data centers in your neighborhood.
Vote RED for endless wars on behalf of our “bestest buddy ever” in the sandbox, Israel.
Vote RED for continued high prices at the pump, the grocery store, and elsewhere, resulting from those endless wars.
Vote RED for continued poisons in our food, like glyphosate, a known carcinogen, that Trump issued an EO to keep available and in use on our wheat crop, back in February.
Vote RED to push our system of government toward a Jewocracy, headed by Jewish supremacists.
By all means, VOTE RED. (eye roll)
Doesn’t matter. Whoever gets to DC will do the same as all of you have done. As soon as the plane lands you forget SC and start to work for the highest bidder such as big pharma, the corporate giants and the big money lobbies for their special interest groups. And it’s not one party, it is all of you clowns under the capital big top. You are ALL the same…..corrupt.
Common sense is you vote for the candidate who is best prepared and educated for the job. Dr.Andrews has shown an independent streak South Carolinians need to see in DC. She has not pledged to vote lock step with anyone. On debate performance alone, the choice is clear. In 2026 we need to vote kitchen table issues not fringe scare tactic issues. Bring back checks and balances by electing prepared thoughtful candidates of both parties or even a third party. Do away with the party lever of voting a straight slate.
Democrats are killing this nation intentionally with socialism and their cultural Marxist agenda leading us to enslavement under totalitarian globalism. Unfortunately, the RINOs are leading us on a slower, parallel path by enslavement to Technocracy. Thomas Jefferson, in his wisdom, said, “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.” He warned that ignorance undermines freedom: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” Is it any wonder the Dems and RINOs have been using our tax dollars to continue dumbing down the mass of people through govt controlled K-12 indoctrination? More than half of Gen Z want more socialism and almost half are comfortable with Communism. Jefferson got it right, ignorance is undermining our freedom.
Alot of fair comments being made on both sides. Still haven’t fully decided what to do… there is a part of me that wants Nordone to lose to teach Trump that betrayal of your base has consequences, and he’s said 100+ times to MAGA crowds all over the country to “vote like he’s on the ballot” to pull some of these “ick” candidates across the line. But what’s the point of that lesson? He’s not up for reelection and he generally doesn’t care about critics, and I don’t know that Trump has ever said “I was wrong, I’m sorry” in his entire adult life. But then I remember that Alito and Thomas are not likely going to make it past the current presidency, and we desperately need the senate majority to be able to keep some commie democrat candidate off the Supreme Court. That alone might get me to vote Nordone.
Here’s a novel idea. PAY ATTENTION TRUMP, MCKISSICK, MCMASTER, SCOTT, THUNE, AND OTHERS WHO STUCK US WITH DARLINE. How about you apologize to us true conservative voters and activists who actually believe in the Republican platform?
Ralph Norman would have TROUNCED Dr. Annie in a head-to-head and you all know it. And he would have instantly been the singular most conservative and honest senator in DC, his record proves it. But NOOOOO, you tell us we have to plug our noses one more time and add a new Graham to the Thune, McConnell, Murkowski, Tillis all-star team so we can watch every conservative opportunity to save our nation go down in flames as always.
Do we sound pissed?
Maybe we could vote for Darline if you asked us to, with sincere, appropriate apologies for trying to sell us out again. But you won’t. And we won’t. This one is on YOU.
Everybody just calm down. The Republicans have brought Nickki Minaj on board. All is well.
Same questions I asked of Ralph Norman, I now pose to Congressman Timmons, a SITTING U.S. Representative into January 2029 and perhaps beyond:
Does the plight of Middle East Christians, a clear majority of whom are NOT Protestants, worry Southern “conservatives” at all? Do you even know that true Christians exist in the Middle East?
In approximate descent of numerosity, in the Middle East in 2026 are left about 30 million Copts in Egypt, about 80% of whom are Orthodox monophysites, 8% Catholic but NOT necessarily Roman Catholic, 5% are Protestants, and 2% are Jehovah’s Witnesses, Adventists, etc. In Lebanon, about 6 million are left, the majority of whom are Maronites. Between Syria and Iraq there WERE at least 6 million more of Assyrians, Syrianites, Malachites, Chaldeans, etc. How many are actually left there varies with estimates. Jump to Jordan, where there are at least 500,000 Christians.
BTW, Dr. Annie Andrews is more likely than y’all to be aware of the existence of Middle Eastern Christians SOLELY BECAUSE about a fourth of physicians in the U.S. are foreign-born/foreign-educated, many (including President Trump’s picks for the FDA and for Surgeon General) are of Middle Eastern Christian ancestry and/or citizenship.
Now, let me bring to your attention two alerting events in the last 30 days and ask for your take on them as a SITTING U.S. lawmaker.
On 30 September 2026, on a Fly-Dubai flight from Dubai to Ben Gurion Airport, a “self-radicalized” co-pilot pretended to want to perform one of the five Moslem daily prayers in the cockpit cabin. The Hindu captain, Smit Machchhar allowed it and respectfully did not look behind himself at the “praying” co-pilot, Hammam al Hammami. Rather than pray, Hammam loosened the cockpit crash axe and began striking Captain Smit in the back of the head with it in order to kill him, take over the plane and crash it into the highest building in Tel Aviv 9/11 style.
Thank God, miraculously, the gravely wounded Smit, fortifying himself with Hindu prayers, managed to open the cockpit cabin door from the inside and scream for help before losing consciousness. The deadheading pilots rushed in, stabilized the plane from the catastrophic descent in which Hammam had put it before being restrained by other passengers, and managed to land it without a single fatality in Tabuk Airport, Saudi Arabia, instead.
Then on Friday, 23 October 2026, three armed men invaded a Christian Orthodox church of Al Karak Governorate in Jordan in the middle of funeral rites for an elderly female and sprayed bullets all around, killing nine and wounding forty innocent worshippers.
No respect for places of worship or for the dignity of the deceased lady being sent to her final rest.
What were Hammami and the three Jordanians trying to achieve?
Did they delude themselves that 12 million Israelis will just get up and leave for no return the only home they ever knew, the home they built over generations and years of real blood, sweat, and tears, and throw themselves into the sea?
Did they delude themselves that the Middle East’s remaining 50 Million Christians will similarly march to the sea, drown themselves, and leave “the Land of Islam” purified of the “kafers” who, according to the Islamist violence-promoters, worship three gods and eat one of those three every Sunday in communion?
Believe it or not, the answers are more likely than not yes and yes.
Or even short of mass self-deportation or self-immolation of 50 million “kafers,” killing a few and making the others miserable is an achievement.
And believe it or not, the delusions and tactics of Islamist violence-promoters are not different from those of U.S. immigrant haters.
BTW, it was none other than Ronald Regan who signed into law the amnesty provisions of IRCA, which began life as the bi-partisan Simpson-Mazzoli bill; and it was none other than the late Lindsey Graham himself who in yester years wanted to introduce a new bi-partisan path-to-legalization before he got obsessed with Ukraine instead.
Notice how the number of Israel’s population, which BTW includes Arabs, Ethiopians, and Mizrahi Jews, approximates the imaginary number of “illegals” who, according to “conservatives” eat white Americans’ pets and steal African Americans’ jobs and women?
Notice also how the grievance of unrepresented litigants are automatically dismissed, regardless of their merits, by U.S. judges of all genders, races, faiths, and political leanings, in the hope that the unrepresented will stop suing?
Why did no one ask any U.S. Senate candidate, or sitting U.S. Senator, from South Carolina if they worry about the future of Middle Eastern Christians?
Do they even know that Christians exist outside the U.S.?
My answer is that the politicians are content to make the opponent suffer verbal blows.
But violence, verbal or physical, never solved anything.
Do these middle-aged blond candidates for one of the two South Carolina Senate Seats have other answers? Do they even know those problems exist?
THIS is where real conscience comes in.
Same questions I asked of Ralph Norman, I now pose to Congressman Timmons, a SITTING U.S. Representative into January 2029 and perhaps beyond:
Does the plight of Middle East Christians, a clear majority of whom are NOT Protestants, worry Southern “conservatives” at all? Do you even know that true Christians exist in the Middle East?
In approximate descent of numerosity, in the Middle East in 2026 are left about 30 million Copts in Egypt, about 80% of whom are Orthodox monophysites, 8% Catholic but NOT necessarily Roman Catholic, 5% are Protestants, and 2% are Jehovah’s Witnesses, Adventists, etc. In Lebanon, about 6 million are left, the majority of whom are Maronites. Between Syria and Iraq there WERE at least 6 million more of Assyrians, Syrianites, Malachites, Chaldeans, etc. How many are actually left there varies with estimates. Jump to Jordan, where there are at least 500,000 Christians.
BTW, Dr. Annie Andrews is more likely than y’all to be aware of the existence of Middle Eastern Christians SOLELY BECAUSE about a fourth of physicians in the U.S. are foreign-born/foreign-educated, many (including President Trump’s picks for the FDA and for Surgeon General) are of Middle Eastern Christian ancestry and/or citizenship.
Now, let me bring to your attention two alerting events in the last 30 days and ask for your take on them as a SITTING U.S. lawmaker.
On 30 September 2026, on a Fly-Dubai flight from Dubai to Ben Gurion Airport, a “self-radicalized” co-pilot pretended to want to perform one of the five Moslem daily prayers in the cockpit cabin. The Hindu captain, Smit Machchhar allowed it and respectfully did not look behind himself at the “praying” co-pilot, Hammam al Hammami. Rather than pray, Hammam loosened the cockpit crash axe and began striking Captain Smit in the back of the head with it in order to kill him, take over the plane and crash it into the highest building in Tel Aviv 9/11 style.
Thank God, miraculously, the gravely wounded Smit, fortifying himself with Hindu prayers, managed to open the cockpit cabin door from the inside and scream for help before losing consciousness. The deadheading pilots rushed in, stabilized the plane from the catastrophic descent in which Hammam had put it before being restrained by other passengers, and managed to land it without a single fatality in Tabuk Airport, Saudi Arabia, instead.
Then on Friday, 23 October 2026, three armed men invaded a Christian Orthodox church of Al Karak Governorate in Jordan in the middle of funeral rites for an elderly female and sprayed bullets all around, killing nine and wounding forty innocent worshippers.
No respect for places of worship or for the dignity of the deceased lady being sent to her final rest.
What were Hammami and the three Jordanians trying to achieve?
Did they delude themselves that 12 million Israelis will just get up and leave for no return the only home they ever knew, the home they built over generations and years of real blood, sweat, and tears, and throw themselves into the sea?
Did they delude themselves that the Middle East’s remaining 50 Million Christians will similarly march to the sea, drown themselves, and leave “the Land of Islam” purified of the “kafers” who, according to the Islamist violence-promoters, worship three gods and eat one of those three every Sunday in communion?
Believe it or not, the answers are more likely than not yes and yes.
Or even short of mass self-deportation or self-immolation of 50 million “kafers,” killing a few and making the others miserable is an achievement.
And believe it or not, the delusions and tactics of Islamist violence-promoters are not different from those of U.S. immigrant haters.
BTW, it was none other than Ronald Regan who signed into law the amnesty provisions of IRCA, which began life as the bi-partisan Simpson-Mazzoli bill; and it was none other than the late Lindsey Graham himself who in yester years wanted to introduce a new bi-partisan path-to-legalization before he got obsessed with Ukraine instead.
Notice how the number of Israel’s population, which BTW includes Arabs, Ethiopians, and Mizrahi Jews, approximates the imaginary number of “illegals” who, according to “conservatives” eat white Americans’ pets and steal African Americans’ jobs and women?
Notice also how the grievance of unrepresented litigants are automatically dismissed, regardless of their merits, by U.S. judges of all genders, races, faiths, and political leanings, in the hope that the unrepresented will stop suing?
Why did no one ask any U.S. Senate candidate, or sitting U.S. Senator, from South Carolina if they worry about the future of Middle Eastern Christians?
Do they even know that Christians exist outside the U.S.?
My answer is that the politicians are content to make the opponent suffer verbal blows.
But violence, verbal or physical, never solved anything.
Do these middle-aged blond candidates for one of the two South Carolina Senate Seats have other answers? Do they even know those problems exist?
THIS is where real conscience comes in.